As the light fades and the city goes to sleep, two forces emerge. They are invisible except for the power they exert over us in our sleep, battling for our souls through dreams. One force delivers hope and strength through good dreams; the other infuses the subconscious with desperation through nightmares. John (Chris Kelly) and Emma (Quinn Hunchar), Father and Daughter are wrenched into this fantastical dream world battle, forced to fight for John's soul and to save Emma from an eternal nightmare. Separate in their journey, they encounter unusual characters that exist only in their subconscious. Or do they? Ink is a high-concept visual thriller that weaves seamlessly between the conscious and the subconscious.

She's Out Of My League 2010 This movie was very entertaining, but you have to be willing to tolerate this kind of movie. It's not a Porky's, but it sure had several very funny parts in it. Jay Baruchel (Kirk), and Alice Eve (Molly) were good in their roles. There are two specific parts in this movie that made it worthwhile to watch imo... when Kirk shaves his balls due to peer pressure to impress Molly, and then in another scene, he ends up having what he states (after the fact) "an oyster accident" in his pants. Romance, comedy & lotsa laughs. 9/10

Valentine's Day 2010 There are a lot of big names in this movie, and the movie encompasses several relationships and their outcome on Valentine's Day. I think Jessica Biel was hilarious in this movie as she played her role of an "I hate Valentine's Day" person. Romance, comedy & lotsa laughs. 9/10

The Ghost Writer: a mystery that held us both for the 2+hours. Enjoyable, even if it's a lefty fantasy.

Hidalgo: La Historia JamÃ¡s Contada: the story of the partying-priest-yet-serious-thinker who told the racist Spanish and their Inquisition to stick it and kicked off Mexico's war of independence. Not the dull hagiography I was expecting. I'd recommend it but I doubt it'll ever make it to other markets. And if you can't see it, at least try to see MoliÃ¨re's "Tartuffe" (wiki, imdb), the banned play Hidalgo tries to perform in the movie.

The Expendables: I'm a bloke. I grew up watching action flicks in the 80s and 90s. There was simply no way I wasn't going to see this. But it wasn't really worth much. Botox got far more onscreen time than Arnie or Bruce.

Kick-Ass: After dragging my girlfriend to The Expendables, I was a bit wary about taking her to another boys' flick. But we both *really* liked this. If I get a Citizen Kane-style moment on my deathbed, the last thing I utter won't be "Rosebud"; it'll be "LAH-la-la, LAH-la-la-la, LAH-la-la, lalalalaaaaa..."

PS to in_hiding: i saw tartuffe, many years ago, at the stratford (ontario) festival theatre. great play, and notable for a damn good performance by a very young Captain James Tiberius Kirk. he may have turned into a disgusting, obnoxious jerk - but he was great 40 years ago or so.

yes, i'm talking about mister priceline himself, billybob shatner. he ia an accomplished stage actor. and if anyone didn't know, he's turned into (or maybe he always was?) a real asshole. i understand george takei (sulu) refused to do one of the star trek movies for no other reason than shatner being obnoxious.

@MrFred & Heat84: I've just watched the pilot for Shit My Dad Says: perhaps the role Shatner was born for?

back to movies:

Repo Man (1984)I've been hearing about (and hearing references to) this movie for decades (god I feel old) without ever having seen it. I even remember watching the director present the Moviedrome series late nights on BBC2. (Damn, looking at this list of films for Moviedrome gets my download finger itching )

Not having seen or heard about Cox in almost 20 years, I was stunned to be watching a Mexican movie (La Ley de Herodes) and see him in a supporting role. Seeing him again finally reminded to download Repo Man.

A simple synopsis might make it sound like a sci-fi movie, but it isn't really. I guess "sci-magical-realism-comedy-fi"? My girlfriend, with no previous knowledge or expectations of it (i.e. perfect guinea pig ) enjoyed it as much as I did. Great to hear those classic punk songs too. And christ, was Emilio Estevez young!

And I just realized that the guy who played Archie(dumb punk robber) is a very-young-this guy(seen since in approximately 1,000,000 movies & TV shows).

the first 30 minutes of this movie are terrible. i nearly nuked it without finishing it, which is something i rarely do. but finally it picks up to the point where it's on par with most recent big hype sci-fi movies i can think of - namely, genuinely mediocre.

Surrogates -2009 - Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell

a much better movie than District 9. does not start with a mind-numbingly boring half hour, better story, better production, much better all the way around.

good old-fashioned fun from good old-fashioned actors. Well, old at least.

A strange lack of violence considering it is based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis. (I mean, the film is violent to be sure, but contains no hyper-violence of the kind I was expecting. Not even any mutilation.)

"Remember, kids, only rich people can sidestep the law. When you download our music without permission, you undermine the very fabric of society, but when we move our money to offshore tax shelters, that's simply 'fiscal responsibility'."--MrFredPFL

I was surprised to find out that the best thing about this movie is its morals, its ethical choices (yes, I was exceedingly surprised). Think about it:

Sly's character decides takes on a job that seems suspicious from the start, where they might not even get the money and the CIA might come gunning for THEM if it goes wrong. This is well before he finds out that the island is a people oppressed by a corrupt local general in tandem with a renegade CIA drugs baron puke, and before he falls in love with the Latin beauty that is trying to liberate her people.

Said Latin beauty gets WATERBOARDED three times by the CIA pukes, in the most direct reference to the immorality and lawlessness of the US government that I have seen since Avatar and the A-Team. Not just that, Stallone insists on undergoing the waterboarding himself before he asks the actress to have it done to her for the shoot.

Once the battle is won, Sly's character - as well as Sly the writer/director - doesn't make the selfish choice of snatching away the love interest to America but sacrifices that potential happiness to leave her to lead her people. What's more he leaves her the money his team had rightfully earned to be used for that purpose.

There is another worthwhile narrative here, which is about expendable labor in general. All the actors are basically - metaphorically - portraying the ravages of their trade (the trade of old-fashioned and outdated action-heroes), with all the scars to show for it. Sly and Rourke are obviously suffering from PTSS and reduced to cynics by their life, Lundgren's character has been driven insane, etc., and I really think they should have Jean-Claude Van Damme on it too just so he could portray a cocaine-addicted, wife-beating mercenary (in an echo of his real life, obviously) that is trying to redeem himself just like Lundgren. This point doesn't work if you think of them as rich actors, but if you put that thought aside, then you could see the movie as a larger metaphor for the ravages of all expendable working-class labor in America.

"Remember, kids, only rich people can sidestep the law. When you download our music without permission, you undermine the very fabric of society, but when we move our money to offshore tax shelters, that's simply 'fiscal responsibility'."--MrFredPFL

Ratt wrote:A strange lack of violence considering it is based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis.

Why do people call comic books graphic novels as if that makes them sound classier or more sophisticated?

The term used to be applied in a narrower way, and in those days collected editions of a serial-format American comics were rarely true graphic novels and never referred to as such (if the TPB has no internal novelistic narrative structure then it is not technically a graphic novel, just issues or story arcs slapped together). In that sense you are correct: the term has seen some abuse since then.

But as it happens Warren Ellis is a big proponent of "genuine" graphic novels, has written manifestos about it, etc. That doesn't mean that everything he writes is a graphic novel, but still, he's more closely associated to them than most writers.

"Remember, kids, only rich people can sidestep the law. When you download our music without permission, you undermine the very fabric of society, but when we move our money to offshore tax shelters, that's simply 'fiscal responsibility'."--MrFredPFL

Ratt wrote:A strange lack of violence considering it is based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis.

Why do people call comic books graphic novels as if that makes them sound classier or more sophisticated?

The term used to be applied in a narrower way, and in those days collected editions of a serial-format American comics were rarely true graphic novels and never referred to as such (if the TPB has no internal novelistic narrative structure then it is not technically a graphic novel, just issues or story arcs slapped together). In that sense you are correct: the term has seen some abuse since then.

But as it happens Warren Ellis is a big proponent of "genuine" graphic novels, has written manifestos about it, etc. That doesn't mean that everything he writes is a graphic novel, but still, he's more closely associated to them than most writers.

In comics, a trade paperback (often shortened to TPB or trade) is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles.

Although trade paperback is actually a publishing term that refers to any book with a flexible cardstock cover which is larger than the standard mass market paperback format, comics fans unfamiliar with that meaning have come to use the term to refer to the type of material traditionally sold in comics shops in that format: collected editions of previously-serialized stories. The term graphic novel is sometimes used interchangeably, but some people maintain that the terms are distinct, with the difference being that the latter term refers to a square-bound printing with largely original materia

The war to become THE dominant computing platform of the future... i.e. 1980s Britain.

I don't know if there's any comment I could make on the quality of this 80 minute comedy drama that wouldn't be completely overwhelmed by a flood of childhood geek nostalgia. John Craven's Newsround! The era of a hundred different microcomputers (that's right, I said microcomputers) contending: not just Acorn and Sinclair, but Commodore, Dragon, Apricot, NewBrain and even sillier names! We had a BBC B in the school library, while the maths teacher showed off his ZX80 in the classroom. Chucky Egg! Jet Set Willy! Clive Sinclair jumping over giant computers! Sinclair pottering along in his C5! The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have had Sinclair jumping over those computers in his bloody C5... and dropping over the edge of a gorge Wile E. Coyote-style and going out in a ball of flaming glory rather than the whimper that really happened.

But God, how could they have a movie about the BBC and not once mention Elite!?!

BTW I don't know how other people reacted to genius inventor Dean Kamen's release of the Segway personal transporter, but I couldn't see it as anything other than a repeat of genius inventor Clive Sinclair's release of the C5 personal transporter. Mmm, seems I'm not the only one making comparisons: http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show/blog/riding-a-segway-to-heaven

the first one was a very good movie. this one is terrible. nuked it at the 38 minute mark. julie benz is lots more fun to look at than willem dafoe, but it was a BAD idea to try to replicate his character in the first one with julie's channeling of kyra sedgewick. and, considering the everything else about the movie sucks in about every way imaginable...